1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telephone systems and, more specifically, to telephone systems and methods for providing business information to consumers.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet has become a powerful tool that is used by many people on a daily basis. The Internet, through the World Wide Web, provides people with information on a wide range of subjects including, for example, consumer information, order shipment tracking, business opportunities, and health issues. Most large corporations and many small businesses now have their own Websites for selling their products and for providing product information to customers. These Websites are contacted over the World Wide Web by using a Web browser on the customer's computer. The browser connects with the Website by using the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), the global address of documents and other resources located on the World Wide Web. The URL may be typed into the browser manually each time the user wishes to contact the Website or the URL may be stored in the browser's bookmark section. If the URL is stored in the browser's bookmark section, a simple click of the mouse on the bookmark will instruct the browser to connect with the Website of the selected URL.
Often, a customer speaking to a business representative on the telephone will ask for that business's URL so that the customer can later check the Website for information concerning, for example, the status of the customer's order, warranty information, or product specifications. The business representative may then accurately recite the URL over the telephone, the customer must accurately write the URL down, and the customer must accurately enter the URL into the browser of the customer's computer in order to successfully gain access to the desired information. The URL can often be quite long and quite complex, made up of symbols, numbers and letters.
Therefore, there is a need for a method to record a URL into the browser without missing any of the symbols, letters or punctuation that must appear in an exact manner for the browser to connect with the desired Website. It would be an advantage if the method could be implemented during a telephone call placed by a customer to a merchant or other type of owner of the desired website. It would be very advantageous if the URL transfer could be totally automatic without requiring the URL to be typed into the browser.